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Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

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Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#21

Post by nkozyra »

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

> Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop?

I suppose you have to pick an example to work from and frankly, the 2016 election was the most noteworthy and groundbreaking disinformation campaign.

A teacher could certainly talk about the latter, but neither Hunter Biden's laptop and Lab Leak Theory have the bulk of documentation to point to.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#22

Post by HarryHirsch »

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

This is as comforting as hearing that schools are teaching religion.

You could have spared yourself that dig, it's beside the point and stupid.

The comparison with religion is actually good. In some countries religion is taught in school because religion is part of human culture, which is firmly within the bailiwick of school. So teachers teaching religion must be accredited by both the government (for competency) and by their religious authority (for adherence to dogma). That's good, because you know who they answer to, and since religious authorities are usually mainstream you won't get revolutionaries or apocalyptic types either.

But reading the news in school, it's like the Soviets teaching how to trust Prawda.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#23

Post by Ragnarork »

Alex3917 wrote: post #7
eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

> this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Media literacy classes have already been shown to turn some percentage of kids into nazis no matter how you teach them, so any particular bias that might be getting instilled probably doesn’t matter too much. If you tell kids to “Go on YouTube and do your own research about the Jews,” then whatever the teacher thinks stops being relevant after ab…

> Media literacy classes have already been shown to turn some percentage of kids into nazis

Quite a claim. Where has this been shown?

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#24

Post by flir »

kiwih wrote: post #12
eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

I did a module on news literacy at my public high school (not in USA). It typically involved taking some notable story and examining material from every publisher that had written on it. We examined both recent affairs (previous 2-3 years) and historical (women's right to vote, native people's/colonial affairs) and how they were covered in the media at the time. It was a fascinating thing to be taught about, and had…

Part of A Level English Language for me. How to read critically, really. It's the old "freedom fighter vs terrorist" exercise.

Of course, this was pre-Internet and the focus was on written English... it's not like we were taught (say) how video editing can control perceptions.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#25

Post by pndy »

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

If the English lessons in the US are covering text analysis, reading comprehension then nothing stops teachers or whoever is responsible for managing the curricula to include issues like fake news, propaganda in today's media - especially in the virtual forms. Of course this might look easy on the paper and be hard to achieve in reality.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#26

Post by refenestrator »

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

That lab leak theory is the most amazing example of widespread bias on all sides I've ever seen.

We went from it being banned on Facebook to it having mainstream acceptance in like a week despite ZERO change in the underlying evidence. The evidence was always just "well there's a lab there". The only thing that changed was Trump isn't president anymore.

It's the perfect rorschach issue for underlying bias, free of any clearcut facts that might be evaluated neutrally.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#27

Post by lancesells »

fatjokes wrote: post #11

I feel like they should just teach more statistics. Learn about bias, sampling and significance. > Students reportedly got a lot better at spotting questionable sources. Like that's definitely a step in the right direction, i.e., don't just blindly trust what you see on Insta or FB, but I worry it'll just teach kids to blindly trust mainstream media like the NYTimes, which are not without their own biases.

Statistics and probability are two things that I think everyone should know. They help so much with understanding the news and whether or not something is actually relevant.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#28

Post by markus_zhang »

eplanit wrote: post #2

Given the primary example used on the kids, the 2016 election, this seems more about instilling bias under the name "news literacy". Are they going to do a section studying the "coverage" of hunter biden's laptop? Remember, for weeks it was cast as Russian propaganda. What about the origins of covid.. will they discuss how at first the lab leak theory was discarded as "misinformation"? I could not trust a public scho…

They should teach independent thoughts. Sadly this is so inconvenient for most of the adults.

Re: Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy

#29

Post by nkozyra »

GiorgioG wrote: post #16

As an independent voter, I try to pinch my nose and read both parties' propaganda machines, but I just can't stomach it. All I want is facts. edit: We can thank Ronald Reagan for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

"There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth."

The media (en masse) can be factual and yet instill a large bias. Stories with uneven sourcing, presentation and priority of different news stories, biased accompanying photographs, weirdly scaled graphs ... there are millions of ways to use facts selectively and tell a story that is factual but not truthful.

Skepticism is probably the most important part of media consumption. What am I reading? Where does it come from? Does the headline try to beg the question? Are there an equal number of sources on both sides? Do they have equal gravity? Where can I confirm these facts? Do they confirm or reject my pre-existing beliefs? And so on ...

It's a lot of work! That's why most people have poor media literacy. That's why we read something on social media at under 256 chars and believe it.

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